Systems and methods for persistent context-aware guides

ABSTRACT

Techniques are described that provide a reading pane for reading one or more content portions of a work and a guide pane that displays a structured overview of additional information from the corpus that is focused by an analysis of information from the currently-visible content portion of the work. The contents of the currently-visible content portion displayed within the reading page are used to derive dynamic representations of the user&#39;s immediate interests. At the user&#39;s request, a structured persistent context-aware guide is computed and displayed. The persistent context-aware guide provides a framework for accessing other parts of the corpus having the most-related information. The elements in the persistent context-aware guide are other content portions or other organizations such as sections, chapters, or articles in the corpus. The persistent context-aware guide may also incorporate additional closely-related information elements from outside the corpus including advertisements. Advertisements for information on the topics of immediate interest to the user can be incorporated within the structured, context-aware guide so that the reader can purchase them and review that information in the context of the current session. The guide pane and the reading pane support navigation controls so that the user can go to new or previous sub-portions of the content portion, new or previous content portions and/or new or previous persistent context-aware guides.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Field of Invention

This invention relates to information access.

Description of Related Art

Foraging for related information is unnecessarily difficult for a user.In conventional search engines, a user must compose a query. However, itmay take a user several iterations to compose a query—submitting firstqueries and looking at results. This is because the user does notalready know exactly what he seeks and does not know exactly what isavailable. Furthermore, on a small, mobile device, query text entry canbe awkward and time-consuming.

Also, the main source of revenue for conventional search engines isthrough advertisements. Conventional search engines have a limitedopportunity to present a user with sponsored links or targetedadvertisements. They mainly present advertisements when users look at asearch page. Once a user clicks on a results link, however, theadvertisements disappear because the user's browser loads theinformation from the linked page.

Some conventional systems based on information scent accept a searchterm and an index and compute a smaller index based on themost-closely-related words in the larger index. The scent index providesa source of possible information targets, a way of picking amost-closely-related subset of a particular size, and a means fordisplaying the results. However, conventional information scent indexsystems do not compute queries from context.

Conventional browsers like Mozilla FireFox sometimes provide a facilityfor highlighting a portion of the text from a web page and thenrequesting that a search be performed using a search service, such asGoogle. The string of characters from the highlighted text is used as aquery. The browser then brings up a page of search results. However,these conventional browsers do not perform analysis of the content. Thehighlighted text is simply taken as a search string. Moreover, thesearch returns a conventional list of ranked pages and lacks apersistent overview.

In Query Free News Search, Monika Henzinger, Bay-Wei Chang, Brian Milch,Sergey Brin, Query-Free News Search, WWW 2003, May 20-24, 2003,Henzinger describes query free search of news information. Thisconventional system finds news articles on the web that are relevant tonews currently being broadcast. The query is computed from the closedcaption of the news story and the information targets are computed froma collection of online news stories.

The Google Desktop Sidebar is an example of a conventional query-freeretrieval system. The Google Sidebar attempts to show mini-displays ofinformation that may be relevant to the user. For example, if a usertends to look at certain kinds of news stories, the Google systemdisplays links to new stories on that topic. This conventional systemalso shows web clips, photos, hot news, local weather, and so on.However, the user interest profile is built-up over successive queriesover time. Thus, the displayed information may not be as relevant tocurrent information foraging activities.

Conventional online advertising systems use text analysis for placingadvertisements on web pages—as in the placement of banner ads and sideads by companies such as Google® and Yahoo!®. These conventional systemsanalyze the content of a current web page and then add banner or sidebar advertisements for products related to the content of the web page.However, these conventional technologies select advertisements andsponsored links based on the user's query and a keyword auction, ratherthan an analysis of related materials of interest.

SUMMARY

Techniques are described that provide a reading pane for reading one ormore content portions of a work and a guide pane that displays astructured overview of additional information from the corpus that isfocused by an analysis of information from the currently-visible contentportion of the work. The contents of the currently-visible contentportion displayed within the reading page are used to derive dynamicrepresentations of the user's immediate interests. At the user'srequest, a structured persistent context-aware guide is computed anddisplayed. The persistent context-aware guide provides a framework foraccessing other parts of the corpus having the most-related information.The elements in the persistent context-aware guide refer or point toother content portions or other organizations such as sections,chapters, or articles in the corpus. The persistent context-aware guidemay also incorporate additional closely-related information elementsfrom outside the corpus including advertisements. The guide pane and thereading pane support navigation controls so that the user can go to newor previous sub-portions of the content portion, new or previous contentportions and/or new or previous persistent context-aware guides.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows an overview of an exemplary system for persistentcontext-aware guides according to an aspect of this invention;

FIG. 2 shows a flowchart of an exemplary method for generatingpersistent context-aware guides according to an aspect of thisinvention;

FIG. 3 is an exemplary system for persistent context-aware guidesaccording to an aspect of this invention;

FIG. 4 shows an exemplary persistent context-aware guide displayed in aguide pane according to an aspect of this invention;

FIG. 5 shows a second exemplary persistent context-aware guide displayedin a guide pane according to an aspect of this invention;

FIG. 6 shows a third exemplary persistent context-aware guide displayedwithin a guide pane according to an aspect of this invention;

FIG. 7 shows a fourth exemplary persistent context-aware guide accordingto an aspect of this invention;

FIG. 8 shows a fifth exemplary persistent context-aware guide accordingto an aspect of this invention;

FIG. 9 shows a sixth exemplary persistent context-aware guide accordingto an aspect of this invention;

FIG. 10 is a first exemplary content portion according to an aspect ofthis invention; and

FIG. 11 is a second exemplary content portion according to an aspect ofthis invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENTS

FIG. 1 shows an overview of an exemplary system for persistentcontext-aware guides 100 according to an aspect of this invention. Thesystem for persistent context-aware guides 100 is connected viacommunications links 99 to: a smartphone 400; and to an informationrepository 200 providing access to a corpus of documents 1000-1010.

In one exemplary embodiment according to this invention, a user of thesmartphone 400 requests a document 1001 from the information repository200. The request is transferred over the communications links 99 to thesystem for persistent context-aware guides 100. The system forpersistent context-aware guides 100 mediates access to the informationrepository 200. The system for persistent context-aware guides 100retrieves the document 1001 and determines the user interest informationbased on the content items. That is, user interest information isdetermined by analyzing the document in the reading pane. The user canfurther focus the selection of information by selecting or highlightingsections of the document or content-portion displayed in the readingpane. The content items may include, but are not limited to, topicinformation, extracted entities, words, sentences, and the like.

One or more sets of index items within the corpus are determined. Thecorpus index items may include, but are not limited to lists ofextracted entities, topics, themes concepts or the like. Interestingitems in the corpus are identified based on the similarity between thecorpus index items and the determined user interest information. Matchesor conceptual overlaps between the corpus index items and determineduser interest information indicate topics, themes or concepts containedwithin the corpus that are of interest to the user. Interesting itemindicators are also determined. The interesting item indicators providea user interface element such as a visual indicator of user interest inthe interesting corpus index items. For example, an interestingindicator may be a numeral indicating the number of additional linksthat are associated with the determined interesting corpus index items.A persistent context-aware guide is then determined based on the corpus,the interesting corpus index items and the determined interesting itemindicators.

The persistent context-aware guide and the document 1001 are thenforwarded over the communications links 99 to the smartphone 400.However, it will be apparent that in various other exemplaryembodiments, the system for persistent context-aware guides 100 may alsobe embedded within the smart phone 400 or other output device withoutdeparting from the spirit or scope of this invention. The document 1001and the persistent context-aware guide are optionally rendered withinthe reading and the guide panes of the display of the smartphone 400.The persistent context-aware guide provides the user of the smartphone400 with a persistent, focused and contextually relevant guide to thecorpus based on user interest and the current reading context. Elementsof the persistent context-aware guide are optionally selectable tonavigate within the corpus.

FIG. 2 shows a flowchart of an exemplary method for generatingpersistent context-aware guides according to an aspect of thisinvention. The process begins at step S100 and immediately continues tostep S200 where a corpus of content portions is determined. In variousexemplary embodiments, the corpus is served by an http server, an ftpserver. However, it will be apparent that the corpus may be containedwithin a digital library, or any other known or later developedinformation source without departing from the scope of this invention.After the corpus of content portions has been determined, controlcontinues to step S300.

In step S300, a content portion is retrieved from the corpus. Thecontent portion may be a web page or a document served by an http serveror the like. In one exemplary embodiment, the content portion is acontent portion or page associated with the result set returned by auser initiated query of a search engine or the like. The content portionis selected automatically under programmatic control or may be manuallyselected or entered by the user. After the content portion has beenselected, control continues to step S400.

The dynamic user interest information is determined in step S400. Thedynamic user interest information is determined by analyzing thecurrently visible content portion. For example, in various exemplaryembodiments, topic information for the currently visible content portionis determined. The determined topics then form the dynamic user interestinformation. However, it will be apparent that any other known and/orlater-developed methods of dynamically determining immediate userinterest information based on the current content portion may also beused without departing from the spirit or scope of this invention. Thisdynamic determination of user interest information supports foraging.For example, a user forages by: reading a page, creating a guide toinformation related to the current page, selecting a new page to readfrom choices in the guide, returning to a previous page, returning to aprevious guide. These operations constitute “Focus+Context” foraging.The “focus” is provided by the reading pane. The context is provided bythe persistent context-aware guide, which provides a set of relatedplaces to go. An even tighter focus is obtained when the user selectsparticular information on the page by highlighting or the like. Afterthe dynamic user interest information has been determined, controlcontinues to step S500.

In step S500, a set of index items from the corpus are determined. Theset of corpus items may be a table of contents, entities extracted fromthe corpus, manually or automatically generated indices and/or any otherset of relevant items within the corpus. In one exemplary embodiment,multiple types and/or sources are used. Protected works, such as digitalbooks, journals, newspapers or the like, are indexed and the indices arethen made available for merging with other material. The corpus orlibrary of protected works them becomes available for searching. Anylinks to these protected content portions are indicated to the user andfacilitate acquisition of relevant material on demand. Thus, in someexemplary embodiments, the index items associated with protected worksare indicated by a display characteristic, a symbol such as a currencysymbol, words or the like. The index elements from the corpus are thenlexicographically ordered. After the index elements from the corpus havebeen determined, control continues to step S600.

In step S600, interesting corpus items are determined based on the indexitems from the corpus and the dynamic user interest informationdetermined from the current content portion. For example, in oneexemplary embodiment, index items from the corpus are compared to theuser interest information derived from the currently visible contentportion. The degree of user-interest in an index item from the corpusand/or the degree of semantic overlap with the user interest informationfrom the current content portion are used to determine interestingitems, that is, information in the reading pane corresponding to guideelements for the page. Interesting items are indicated by interestingitem indicators such as hyper-linked text, symbols or the like. In someexemplary embodiments, the interesting item indicators provide a numericor other indicator of how much corpus information is associated with theinteresting item. In other exemplary embodiments, the interestingindicators may be used to signal additional fees or costs associatedwith access to the protected works such as digital books, journals,articles or the like. After the interesting items have been determined,control continues to step S700.

A persistent context-aware guide to the corpus is determined in stepS700. The persistent context-aware guide is based on the set of indexitems from the corpus, the interesting items and the interesting itemindicators. After the persistent context-aware guide is determined,control continues to step S800.

In step S800 the persistent context-aware guide is displayed in a guidepane. In various exemplary embodiments, the reading pane and the guidepane are both are persistent. In still other embodiments, the readingpane and the guide pane may also have navigation controls. The joint useof the reading and guide panes supports focus+context foraging. Invarious embodiments, the persistent context-aware guide is based on oneor more extracted entities, index items referring to the current page,entities with similar hypernyms and the like, either alone or incombination. The persistent context-aware guide provides a persistentframework that a user can employ to structure their information searchand retrieval activities.

In various exemplary embodiments according to this invention, one ormore of the corpus index items, extracted entities and/or other guideelements displayed in the guide pane are sponsored or advertising guideelements. The sponsored guide elements provide access to information ofwhich a user may not be aware and which they may not have previously hadaccess to. The user is more likely to purchase the sponsored orprotected information as evidenced by their use of tools to search forsimilar information. In still other embodiments according to thisinvention, the persistent context-aware guide allows sponsored guideelements and/or advertising guide elements to be logically placed in thepersistent context-aware guide based on lexicographical ordering, placedunder the appropriate or correct header, hypernym or the like.

After the persistent context-aware guide is displayed, control continuesto step S900 where user interactions are determined. The userinteractions may include but are not limited to navigation withindocuments, navigation within the reading pane, navigation within theguide pane, navigation within the guide pane, and termination of thesession. Control then continues to step S1000 where a determination ismade as to whether an end-of-session has been entered by the user,initiated by the program or otherwise indicated. If it is determinedthat an end-of-session has not been determined, control continues tostep S1100 where the guide pane and/or the reading pane is updated basedon the user interactions. Control then jumps immediately to step S400.Steps S400-S1100 are then repeated until it is determined that theend-of-session has been signaled. Control then continues to step S1200and the process ends.

FIG. 3 is an exemplary system for persistent context-aware guides 100according to an aspect of this invention. The system for persistentcontext-aware guides 100 is comprised of: a processor 10, a memory 15, acontent analysis determination circuit or manager 20; a degree ofinterest determination circuit or manager 25; a persistent guidedetermination circuit or manager 30; and a display circuit or manager35; each connected to an input/output circuit 5 and via communicationslinks 99 to: a smartphone 400; and an information repository 200providing access to a corpus of documents or content portions 1000-1010.

In one exemplary embodiment according to this invention, a user of thesmartphone 400 requests document 1001 from the information repository200. The request is transferred over the communications links 99 and ismediated by the system for persistent context-aware guides 100. Theprocessor 10 of the system for persistent context-aware guides 100activates the input/output circuit 5 to retrieve document 1001 from theinformation repository 200 and store the document 1001 in memory 15. Theprocessor 10 activates the content analysis determination circuit ormanager 20 to determine the dynamic user-interest information. Thedynamic user interest information is based on the information underimmediate review by the user. That is, the currently and/orsimultaneously displayed document 1001 is analyzed to determine thecurrent user interest. When a user navigates to a new document orcontent portion, the user interest information is dynamically andimmediately updated based on the newly displayed document or contentportion. In various other embodiments, user actions such as highlightingall or portions of a content portion, or the like can be used toindicate specific areas of user interest in the displayed document orcontent portion.

The processor 10 then activates the degree of interest determinationcircuit or manager 25. The degree of interest determination circuit ormanager 25 selects from a set of index items associated with the corpusof documents that are of interest to the user. The set of corpus indexitems may be determined dynamically or in a prior step.

The processor 10 then activates the persistent guide determinationcircuit or manager 30 to select interesting corpus index items that arethe same or similar to the determined dynamic user interest information.Links to the selected interesting corpus index items are displayed inthe persistent context aware guide.

The processor 10 then activates the display circuit or manager 45 todisplay the persistent context-aware guide and/or to forward a generatedand displayable persistent context-aware guide over communications links99 for display on the smartphone 400. In various exemplary embodiments,the content portion is displayed within a reading pane and thecontext-aware guide is displayed within a guide pane.

FIG. 4 shows an exemplary persistent context-aware guide 610 displayedin a guide pane 600 according to an aspect of this invention. Thepersistent context-aware guide 610 is comprised of an index of relevanttopics. The relevant topics are associated with portions of thedocuments or content portions in a corpus of documents or contentportions.

In one of the various exemplary embodiments according to this invention,the persistent context-aware guide is determined by selecting elementsfrom a previously compiled index for the corpus based on terms extractedfrom the currently visible document or content portion. For example, theterms anthrax, tularemia, Q fever, brucellosis, glanders and plague areall explicitly mentioned in the currently visible document or contentportion. Thus, concepts from the corpus index corresponding to thisdynamic user interest information are selected for display within thepersistent context-aware guide.

In one of the exemplary embodiments according to this invention, ahypernym for the set of extracted terms is determined and used as atopic header. For example, the term “diseases” is a hypemrnym of theterms anthrax, tularemia, Q fever, brucellosis, glanders and plague.Each of these extracted terms therefore appears below and is associatedwith the topic header “diseases” as an extracted topic entry 720 in thecontext-aware guide 610.

Each disease also appears as a separate link in the persistentcontext-aware guide 610. The persistent context-aware guide 610 isdynamically computed and/or generated when the user hits a key, enters acommand or the like.

FIG. 5 shows a second exemplary persistent context-aware guide 620displayed in a guide pane 600 according to an aspect of this invention.When the user selects the topic “Biopreparat” 710 from the persistentcontext aware guide displayed within the guide pane 600, the entriesrelated to “Biopreparat” are expanded. This expansion allows a user toreview other potentially relevant links while maintaining context withinthe current document or content portion. The information can beexpanded, compressed or otherwise transformed. In various embodiments,gestures, or indications of user interest or focus are used to makeother adjustments to the quantity of displayed information whilemaintaining context with respect to the information displayed within thereading pane 500 and the guide pane 600.

The first sub-topic index entry beneath the “Biopreparat” 710 corpusindex entry is “Anglo-American demarche and” 711. The “Anglo-Americandemarche” corpus index entry is not directly mentioned within thecontent portion 510. However, the sub-topic corpus index entry isincluded in the expanded topic displayed in the guide pane since theuser selection of the “Biopreparat” 710 corpus index entry implies userinterest in all sub-topic corpus index entries related to the“Biopreparat” 710 corpus index entry.

The tenth sub-topic beneath the “Biopreparat” 710 corpus index entry is“facilities and installations of ix-x, 42-3, 81, 82”. This sub-topiccorpus index entry was displayed in the previous persistentcontext-aware guide since it matches the currently visible document orcontent portion. That is, the currently visible document describes ableak island in the Aral Sea which was in fact one of the “Biopreparat”facilities. It should be noted that neither the term “Biopreparat” northe term “facilities” are found in the currently visible document orcontent portion. Thus, it should also be apparent that automatic and/ormanually created indices may be used without departing from the scope ofthis invention.

The thirty-fourth corpus index entry 713 contains the value “U.S. tourdelegation of”. This corpus index entry is displayed when the“Biopreparat” corpus index entry 710 was expanded. However, thethirty-fourth corpus index entry 713 was not visible in the previouslydescribed persistent context-aware guide since the corpus index entrydid not match any of the elements from the currently visible document orcontent portion.

FIG. 6 shows a third exemplary persistent context-aware guide 630displayed within a guide pane 600 according to an aspect of thisinvention. The persistent context-aware guide 630 shows the expansionsthat occur when the user expands the corpus index entry “diseases”. Theresulting persistent context-aware guide 630 enumerates links to each ofthe diseases mentioned within the corpus. That is, each diseaseidentified in the content portion and having a corresponding corpusindex entry is listed in the persistent context aware guide 630displayed in the guide pane 600.

The first row of the persistent context-aware guide contains the value“diseases (38)”. This indicates that there are 38 entries within the“diseases” topic. The second row contains the value “African Swine Fever38”. The user displays the content portion associated with the “AfricanSwine Fever” corpus index entry by selecting the link in the persistentcontext-aware guide 630 displayed in the guide pane 600. The readingpane is then updated from the currently displayed page ix to page 38.

The third row contains the value “AIDS, 19, 109, 110” 722. In oneexemplary embodiment, selecting the page numbers of the “AIDS” corpusindex entry in the guide pane 600 displays the relevant page within thereading pane 500. The persistent context-aware guide 630 maintains theusers focus and context during information foraging activities.

The fourth row contains the values “anthrax, ix-x, 6-8, 20, 36, 42, 51,72-5, 77-9, 81-2, p4-p5, p7, 83-6, 88, 97-9, 105, 115” 723. These corpusindex entries indicate documents or content portions in the corpusidentified as relevant to the term “anthrax”. The fifth row contains thevalue “Anthrax 7-8, 76-8, p-4, 87, 89, 105, 118. These corpus indexentries are manually generated and indicate document or content portionsin the corpus relevant to the term “anthrax”. The capitalization of the“Anthrax” term allows the user to differentiate between multiple sourcesof index information. In still other exemplary embodiments, additionaldisplay characteristics such as color, underlining, font size or thelike may also be used to signal origination of the entry in differentindex sources. For example, in another embodiment, paid placement oradvertising material is indicated by differentiating displaycharacteristics such as capitalization, highlighting, fonts, color,underlining or the like. In still other exemplary embodiments,information from multiple sources is integrated or fused into a singlecorpus index entry.

FIG. 7 shows a fourth exemplary persistent context-aware guide 640according to an aspect of this invention. The persistent context-awareguide 640 uses a list of entities 800 to be extracted from the documentsor content portions in the corpus. The entities may include, but are notlimited to years, people, company and/or other known or later specifiednamed or extracted entity.

In one exemplary embodiment according to this invention, the user findsall references in a set of documents or content portions that referencevarious types of companies by selecting the “company” type of namedentity. This facilitates information foraging and/or browsingactivities.

FIG. 8 shows a fifth exemplary persistent context-aware guide 650according to an aspect of this invention. The persistent context-awareguide 650 shows an expanded list of “YEAR” type index entries 910extracted from the one or more documents or content portions of thecorpus. An associated content portion 540 is displayed when the pagenumber 911 associated with the relevant year entry is selected.

FIG. 9 shows a sixth exemplary persistent context-aware guide 660according to an aspect of this invention. The user further focuses theuser interest information by highlighting a portion of the document orcontent portion 530 displayed in the reading pane 500. The elementscontained within the selected portion 531 are used to create apersistent context-aware guide 660. The persistent context-aware guide660 provides a set of guide elements. The guide elements are indexentries, links or connections to other places within the corpus ofdocuments or content portions containing material relevant to theselected portion 531. In various embodiments, the persistentcontext-aware guide 660 includes corpus items from multiple sources. Forexample, index entries from a manually generated index may be combinedwith a list of index entities automatically extracted from the corpus,paid placement and/or advertising material and other sources of indices.The combined list of index entries is lexicographically ordered and/ormerged and displayed as guide elements that facilitate browsing.

FIG. 10 is a first exemplary content portion 510 according to an aspectof this invention. The entire portion highlighted portion 1201 of thecontent portion 510 is used to dynamically determine the current userinterest information. That is, the items identified in the contentportion are used to dynamically determine the information of interest tothe user. The items may include topics, sentences, words and/or othersemantic structures within the content portion 510.

FIG. 11 is a second exemplary content portion 510 according to an aspectof this invention. A sub-portion 1202 of the content portion 510 is usedto dynamically determine information of interest to the user. In variousexemplary embodiments, items identified in the sub-portion 1202 of thecontent portion 510 are used to determine and/or further dynamicallyrefine the user interest information. The items may be topics,sentences, words and/or other semantic units within the content portion510.

In various embodiments, various types of marking or notation are used todesignate index terms. For example, index terms may also be extracted orselected from an index for use as guide elements without departing fromthe scope of this invention.

The persistent context-aware guide provides a view of the informationcontent of the corpus personalized to the user's current location withinthe document or content portion. In various exemplary embodimentsaccording to this invention, the index items in the corpus includetopics, themes, keywords or the like.

In the various embodiments of the system for persistent context-awareguides 100, each of the circuits 5-35 outlined above can be implementedas portions of a suitably programmed general-purpose computer.Alternatively, 5-35 of the system for persistent context-aware guides100 outlined above can be implemented as physically distinct hardwarecircuits within an ASIC, or using a FPGA, a PDL, a PLA or a PAL, orusing discrete logic elements or discrete circuit elements. Theparticular form each of the circuits 10-35 of the system for persistentcontext-aware guides 100 outlined above will take is a design choice andwill be obvious and predictable to those skilled in the art.

Moreover, the system for persistent context-aware guides 100 and/or eachof the various circuits discussed above can each be implemented assoftware routines, managers or objects executing on a programmed generalpurpose computer, a special purpose computer, a microprocessor or thelike. In this case, the system for persistent context-aware guides 100and/or each of the various circuits discussed above can each beimplemented as one or more routines embedded in the communicationsnetwork, as a resource residing on a server, or the like. The system forsystem for persistent context-aware guides 100 and the various circuitsdiscussed above can also be implemented by physically incorporating thesystem for persistent context-aware guides 100 into software and/orhardware system, such as the hardware and software systems of a webserver or a client device.

As shown in FIG. 3, memory 15 can be implemented using any appropriatecombination of alterable, volatile or non-volatile memory ornon-alterable, or fixed memory. The alterable memory, whether volatileor non-volatile, can be implemented using any one or more of static ordynamic RAM, a floppy disk and disk drive, a write-able or rewrite-ableoptical disk and disk drive, a hard drive, flash memory or the like.Similarly, the non-alterable or fixed memory can be implemented usingany one or more of ROM, PROM, EPROM, EEPROM, an optical ROM disk, suchas a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM disk, and disk drive or the like.

The communication links 99 shown in FIGS. 1 & 3, can each be any knownor later developed device or system for connecting a communicationdevice to the system for persistent context-aware guides 100, includinga direct cable connection, a connection over a wide area network or alocal area network, a connection over an intranet, a connection over theInternet, or a connection over any other distributed processing networkor system. In general, the communication links 99 can be any known orlater developed connection system or structure usable to connect devicesand facilitate communication.

Further, it should be appreciated that the communication links 99 can bewired or wireless links to a network. The network can be a local areanetwork, a wide area network, an intranet, the Internet, or any otherdistributed processing and storage network.

While this invention has been described in conjunction with theexemplary embodiments outlined above, it is evident that manyalternatives, modifications and variations will be apparent to thoseskilled in the art. Accordingly, the exemplary embodiments of theinvention, as set forth above, are intended to be illustrative, notlimiting. Various changes may be made without departing from the spiritand scope of the invention.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for creating and using context-aware guides comprising: displaying, by a computer, a visible content portion from a corpus in a reading pane to a user; deriving, by the computer, user interest information from the visible content portion; determining, by the computer, a set of index items based on the corpus by combining a manually generated index with a list of entities extracted from the corpus, paid placement or advertising material, and protected works which are indexed, to obtain a combined list; lexographically ordering and merging items in the combined list; determining, by the computer, a set of user interface guide elements for the corpus that correspond to information items from a content portion that includes the visible content portion, wherein the information items from the content portion include annotations indicated by subscripts and are determined using the extracted entities, and wherein the user interface guide elements are based on the combined list; determining, by the computer based on a degree of semantic overlap, an item of interest by comparing a determined index item to the derived user interest information, wherein the item of interest comprises information in the reading pane which corresponds to a user interface guide element; displaying, for a respective information item, an indicator in the reading pane indicating additional costs for accessing associated reference items; displaying the user interface guide elements and corresponding interesting item indicators as a context-aware guide in a guide pane, wherein a respective interesting item indicator provides an indicator of how much corpus information is associated with the determined item of interest and further provides fees or costs associated with access to the protected works, wherein access to a displayed user interface guide element is purchased by selecting the displayed user interface guide element in the context-aware guide, wherein the user interacts with the displayed user interface guide elements to purchase access to a single page of a work, a section of a work, a chapter, an entire work, and a collection of works, and wherein a plurality of pages, including at least one recently-visited page and at least one page immediately linked-to by the current page, are used to provide context for creating the context-aware guide; in response to receiving a request via a displayed user interface guide element to expand the item of interest, updating the context-aware guide displayed in the guide pane to display a new set of user interface guide elements associated with and displayed as sub-entries of the item of interest, wherein at least one user interface guide element of the new set of user interface guide elements is not displayed in the visible content portion in the reading pane; and responsive to a user navigating to a new document or a new visible content portion, dynamically updating the displayed reading pane and the displayed user interface guide elements in the guide pane based on the user's current location within the new document or the new visible content portion.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the corpus comprises at least one of: pages of a book, web pages, works in a digital library, and works in an information feed.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein the information items are further determined using topic identification.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of user interface guide elements for the corpus comprises elements from one or more of: a table of contents, an index, a manually produced index, an automatically produced index, an ontology of extracted entities, and an ontology of topics.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein determining, the item of interest is further based on a degree of interest, and wherein the degree of interest is based on term-matching.
 6. The method of claim 5, wherein the user interface guide elements include the item of interest and one or more other items of interest, and wherein displaying the user interface guide elements as the context-aware guide is based on a highest degree of interest associated with the item of interest and the other items of interest.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of user interface guide elements for the corpus are derived from at least two sources.
 8. The method of claim 1, wherein the context-aware guide is organized as at least one of: a topic map, an index, a tree, and lexicographically ordered sources.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein the annotations indicate referents of items from the corpus.
 10. The method of claim 9, wherein the annotations are further indicated by a display characteristic.
 11. The method of claim 10, wherein the display characteristic is at least one of: highlights, font effects, subscripts, and superscripts.
 12. The method of claim 9, wherein the annotations are selectable and operable to select associated guide elements for display.
 13. The method of claim 9, wherein reading pane interactions change the displayed context-aware guide.
 14. The method of claim 1, wherein the reading pane contains a set of navigation controls.
 15. The method of claim 14, wherein the navigation controls include at least one of: forward and back navigation controls.
 16. The method of claim 1, wherein the guide pane includes selectable guide elements indicative of relevant corpus items, which are outside the context of the reading pane.
 17. The method of claim 16, wherein the selectable guide elements are operable to adjust the scope of the guide.
 18. The method of claim 1, wherein displayed user interface guide elements which are associated with protected content portions are associated with a cost indicator.
 19. The method of claim 18, wherein the cost indicator is at least one of: a token, a symbol, a word, and a display characteristic.
 20. The method of claim 1, wherein the several pages further include at least one of: adjacent pages in a book, a set of pages that are reached by a short path from the current page, and a set of pages on the same web site as the current page.
 21. The method of claim 1, wherein the context-aware guide indicates which pages in the user interface guide elements were previously visited by the user.
 22. A system for providing context-aware guides, comprising: a processor; an input/output manager configured to display a visible content portion from a corpus in a reading pane to a user; a content analysis determination manager configured to derive user interest information from the visible content portion; a degree of interest determination manager configured to: determine a set of index items based on the corpus by combining a manually generated index with a list of entities extracted from the corpus, paid placement or advertising material, and protected works which are indexed, to obtain a combined list; lexographically order and merge items in the combined list; and determine a set of user interface guide elements for the corpus that correspond to information items from a content portion that includes the visible content portion, wherein the information items from the content portion include annotations indicated by subscripts and are determined using the extracted entities, and wherein the user interface guide elements are based on the combined list; a persistent guide determination manager configured to determine, based on a degree of semantic overlap, an item of interest by comparing a determined index item to the derived user interest information, wherein the item of interest comprises information in the reading pane which corresponds to a user interface guide element; and a display manager configured to: display, for a respective information item, an indicator in the reading pane indicating additional costs for accessing associated reference items; display the user interface guide elements and corresponding interesting item indicators as a context-aware guide in a guide pane, wherein a respective interesting item indicator provides an indicator of how much corpus information is associated with the determined item of interest and further provides fees or costs associated with access to the protected works, wherein access to a displayed user interface guide element is purchased by selecting the displayed user interface guide element in the context-aware guide, wherein the user interacts with the displayed user interface guide elements to purchase access to a single page of a work, a section of a work, a chapter, an entire work, and a collection of works, and wherein a plurality of pages, including at least one recently-visited page and at least one page immediately linked-to by the current page, are used to provide context for creating the context-aware guide; in response to receiving a request via a displayed user interface guide element to expand the item of interest, update the context aware guide displayed in the guide pane to display a new set of user interface guide elements associated with and displayed as sub-entries of the item of interest, wherein at least one user interface guide element of the new set of user interface guide elements is not displayed in the visible content portion in the reading pane; and responsive to a user navigating to a new document or a new visible content portion, dynamically update the displayed reading pane and the displayed user interface guide elements in the guide pane based on the user's current location within the new document or the new visible content portion.
 23. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium embedded with instructions that when executed by a computer cause the computer to perform a method, the method comprising: displaying, by the computer, a visible content portion from a corpus in a reading pane to a user; deriving, by the computer, user interest information from the visible content portion; determining, by the computer, a set of index items based on the corpus by combining a manually generated index with a list of entities extracted from the corpus, paid placement or advertising material, and protected works which are indexed, to obtain a combined list; lexographically ordering and merging items in the combined list; determining, by the computer a set of user interface guide elements for the corpus that correspond to information items from a content portion that includes the visible content portion, wherein the information items from the content portion include annotations indicated by subscripts and are determined using the extracted entities, and wherein the user interface guide elements are based on the combined list; determining, by the computer based on a degree of semantic overlap, an item of interest by comparing a determined index item to the derived user interest information, wherein the item of interest comprises information in the reading pane which corresponds to a user interface guide element; displaying, for a respective information item, an indicator in the reading pane indicating additional costs for accessing associated reference items; displaying the user interface guide elements and corresponding interesting item indicators as a context-aware guide in a guide pane, wherein a respective interesting item indicator provides an indicator of how much corpus information is associated with the determined item of interest and further provides fees or costs associated with access to the protected works, wherein access to a displayed user interface guide element is purchased by selecting the displayed user interface guide element in the context-aware guide, wherein the user interacts with the displayed user interface guide elements to purchase access to a single page of a work, a section of a work, a chapter, an entire work, and a collection of works, and wherein a plurality of pages, including at least one recently-visited page and at least one page immediately linked-to by the current page, are used to provide context for creating the context-aware guide; in response to receiving a request via a displayed user interface guide element to expand the item of interest, updating the context-aware guide displayed in the guide pane to display a new set of user interface guide elements associated with and displayed as sub-entries of the item of interest, wherein at least one user interface guide element of the new set of user interface guide elements is not displayed in the visible content portion in the reading pane; and responsive to a user navigating to a new document or a new visible content portion, dynamically updating the displayed reading pane and the displayed user interface guide elements in the guide pane based on the user's current location within the new document or the new visible content portion. 